


show me?

by exquisitelymorose



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: 6 months later, Attachment, Domestic, F/F, Growth, I love them and they're gay, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exquisitelymorose/pseuds/exquisitelymorose
Summary: "Eve picks up consulting work and buys the groceries and keeps a schedule of when to clean their rented flat. She knows what time their shows are on and when the market has fresh produce and what trails are safer than others to run along. Inside her own insanity, Eve had mastered normalcy and Villanelle never could, never had the chance.She resents it."
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 14
Kudos: 221





	show me?

Eve leaves.

It’s what she does, it’s what she’s always done. 

Her parents stone walled, or at least that’s what MI6’s mandatory counsellor told her a few years ago. When they were upset, disappointed, at a loss, she was met with silence. They turned their backs and ignored her words. She closed herself up in a room and waited.

The first boyfriend she lived with, the one before Niko, he was angry. An explosive type of anger that was irrational and unforgiving. It would grow and swell until it seemed he might burst and then, nothing. He’d tire himself out. Eve learned the twitch in his eye and when to turn for the door. An aimless walk or a night on a friends couch, then it would all be over. She’d turn her key and there he’d be, a weary smile and a light apology. Like it never happened.

Niko taught her to sit and struggle. Struggle through the thoughts, the feelings, the words she’d never had to find before. It worked. They worked. For a time. But then life picked up pace, they ran straight from honeymoon fantasy into actuality and well, old habits die hard, don’t they? She got so sick of talking, so sick of feeling. So she left and she just kept leaving until he did the same. Only when he did it, it was final. 

When Villanelle is angry, Eve leaves.

She isn’t wrong to feel this way. Things have been heavy and hard and tiring. They’re both just so tired. Villanelle is frustrated, a willowy figure of unspent energy. She paces and runs and tries to keep busy. She doesn’t want to kill, it’s not that. She’s just never gone so long being… inactive. Never gone so long without a purpose. She doesn’t know what to do with herself. Eve does.

Eve picks up consulting work and buys the groceries and keeps a schedule of when to clean their rented flat. She knows what time their shows are on and when the market has fresh produce and what trails are safer than others to run along. Inside her own insanity, Eve had mastered normalcy and Villanelle never could, never had the chance. She resents it.

She’s sitting silently, a cat curved back in their tall bar stool at the counter, watching. Eve is chopping scallions for a recipe Villanelle had wanted to make and ultimately grown frustrated with, pushing the knife down and away. 

“I could show you.”

“No.”

“How else will you learn?”

“I should know.”

Eve sighs. They do this lots. “I know you think that but the only way to learn is to be taught. It’s not your fault that no one taught you.”

Today it’s just some dumb recipe she’s scrolled past but it’s more than that. It’s how to pay their bills and draw up a budget or set up a legitimate phone or get a metro card or learn about insurance or taxes or or or or. Things that don’t come prepaid in envelopes or suitcases and mysteriously appear from some ambiguous organization that has it handled. 

“I will learn.”

Eve huffs a sigh, “from who?”

“The YouTubes.”

The last 6 months has been an endless stream of YouTube tutorials and Wiki-How’s and quick Google searches in the bathroom. Eve just lets it go silently and tries to gently correct when she realizes Villanelle has clearly read and misunderstood something. Like the time she threw her phone into traffic because it “stopped working.”

It hadn’t. She’d forgotten to pay, or didn’t know she had to, and they’d turned it off. 

This time Eve laughs, “but I’m right here. And I’m better than -“

But when she looks up, Villanelle is not smiling. She’s not even looking at her.

Then it all dissolves. 

Months of frustration and confusion tumbling down into what can only be summarized as a tantrum. Villanelle huffs and yells and throws her hands about wildly. She feels small and useless and belittled and глупый. Eve just stands, she waits. But Villanelle doesn’t tire, she only grows annoyed that Eve isn’t playing the game with her, isn’t throwing her own hands or yelling.

So, Eve leaves.

She gives the other woman one final, resolute look, pulls a sweater over her head and closes the door behind her.

She walks for awhile. Stops at a cafe and eats a dinner thats far more expensive and probably not as good as the fresh food still sitting on their chopping block. She checks her phone, silent, nothing and waits it out. 

Almost three hours has passed when she’s unlocking their front door. It’s quiet and dark. The kitchen is cleared, the half cut ingredients neatly tucked into the fridge. Eve wanders slowly through the living room, peeks into the small office, the bathroom and finds herself at their closed bedroom door. There’s not a light on inside, no sound coming from the other side. Eve sighs and waits before lightly brushing her knuckles against the wood - “I’m back,” she calls lightly.

Then she turns away and lays herself on the sofa.

TV is boring without Villanelle.

It’s not 25 minutes before the bedroom door creaks open. Eve pushes herself up quickly, waiting, ready. Villanelle doesn’t look at her. She’s wrapped up in her favourite sweat suit which is, of course, still beautiful and probably more than Eve makes in 6 months. She can’t see her face beyond the illumination of the dark TV but she’s silent and rigid as she walks and closes herself away in the bathroom.

Eve thinks she’ll go straight for the bedroom again but she doesn’t. She stands tall, next to the TV, arms crossed. It’s in these moments that Eve can imagine how every man she’s ever dated has felt in the line of her fire. Dull, foolish and empty headed.

“Where did you go?”

“For a walk.”

“Why?”

“To give you some space.”

Villanelle only nods. Her nose is a little thinned, her cheeks hollowed, sucked between her teeth. She looks to the floor, nods again and turns on her heel. The door to the bedroom shuts quietly behind her. Eve stares after her. She doesn’t follow.

She wakes up on the sofa with a moan of pain. It’s not yet midnight but she’d fallen asleep, neck kinked to the side. The TV is off. Villanelle must’ve turned it off but not woken her to come to bed. She pushes herself up anyway.

The room is quiet, save for the fan they both like for the white noise. The lights are off and her partners back is to her.

“V?”

Nothing.

She sheds her clothes, pulls on a t-shirt and slides in next to her. Eve wants to sleep, thinks Villanelle probably is but everything feels wrong. Shifting to her side, she rests a hand on Villanelles back and rubs a small circle once, twice, three times.

“Why did you go?”

Eve stops but keeps her hand there.

“I told you, to give you space.”

A long silence stretches between them.

“I didn’t want space.”

“What did you want me to do?” Eve is tired and a little hurt but the worry takes up low in her belly.

Villanelle shifts finally, rolls to face her.

“I didn’t want you to leave.”

“But you were being a dick.”

“Tell me to stop then.”

“Should I have to?”

She sees the gears turning, the way Villanelles eyebrow quirks. She’s gotten better at this, much better. She hears and she listens. She takes the information in and lets it sit. 

“No,” she says eventually and it’s soft and quiet and if Eve knows her, edged with shame. 

Eve runs her hand over the plains of Villanelles face, down her cheek, back up through her hair. She laces their fingers together between them. 

“I’m sorry I left.”

The sound between them is something like a sigh or choke, a swallowing of emotion.

“I’ve been left a lot, Eve.”

It hits her in her chest, in her stomach. She knows this. She’s always known this. She should’ve thought of it before she closed the door behind her and left Villanelle alone. She raises their joined hands and lays her lips over soft knuckles.

“I’m sorry.”

“People that never came back when they said they would.”

“I would never do that to you.”

“But-”

“No but. I wouldn’t. Not now. And if sometimes I have to leave, I will always come back.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Eve half expects Villanelle to curl into her, to kiss her, hold her. It’s how she’s become. But she doesn’t. She pulls her hand from theirs and turns back to her side.

Eventually, they’re asleep. 

In the morning, Eve finds Villanelle in the kitchen. There is fresh bread on the counter, eggs, a few small jars of spices. The blonde looks perplexed, her nose scrunched. It is utterly adorable.

“Morning.” Eve calls from the bedroom door. She wants to go to her, hug her, apologize again. But she doesn’t want to push. 

Villanelle looks up from where she’s grumbling to herself and smiles. She holds up the bottle of Champagne she must’ve just run out to get and points to orange juice, “mimosas!” The sun beams hits the green glass and casts beautiful colours across the wall.

Eve smiles, “great.”

“And French toast?”

“Even better.”

They’re both standing for a moment, still, silent. Eve watches Villanelle who takes in the ingredients before her. Then she looks up, eyes wide and hopeful -

“Eve?”

“Mmm?”

“Show me?”

“Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many thoughts of these two taking up residence in my mind. Please leave your comments and kudos to fuel the writing. Any suggestions? Leave them here.


End file.
